Currently, little is done to improve the fire resistance of construction materials. While some building materials such as concrete are not burned by fire, other building materials such as plywood sheathing are readily burned by fire. Some materials, such as gypsum wall board, are resistant to fire to some degree, but will typically fail rather quickly in the presence of a moderate fire. As such, fire presents a serious risk to buildings and fire damage accounts for a large portion of structural damage to buildings. In some areas, periodic forest or grass fires are common and these fires destroy many buildings. The readiness with which common building materials such as plywood burn causes the fires to spread quickly from building to building.
It would be desirable to improve the fire resistance of these common building materials without dramatically changing how the materials are used and handled. The use of more fire resistant building materials could slow or stop the progress of fires within a building or through groups of buildings, making the fire more easily controlled and reducing the damage caused by the fire. In particular, more fire resistant sheathing materials would slow or stop the spread of the fire as these would protect other building materials such as wood framing from the fire. The use of more fire resistant building materials will also slow a fire within a building, giving occupants more time to escape from such a building.
It would be desirable to make more fire resistant building materials which are used in the same manner as the conventional building material. This would allow construction workers to use the more fire resistant materials without changes to the tools which are necessary or to the methods used to build the building. This allows the more fire resistant materials to be easily adopted and used in construction projects.
There is thus a need for building materials which are more resistant to burning. There is a particular need for sheathing materials which are more resistant to burning.